What I learnt about parenting from Mark Zuckerberg
We remember the extraordinary, the ordinary characterises us. We will never forget our first kiss, our first flat or the Christmas Eve we spent alone in a railway station bistro with a bottle of wine. These experiences - both the beautiful and the terrible ones - are like cement in which a rough boot leaves its mark forever.
What we do every day, on the other hand, we forget. The everyday is like a lake on which a snowflake falls. Nothing reminds us of the moment, and yet the level slowly rises as the snow continues to fall. In the same way, daily actions leave their mark on our souls.
It's never too late to replace missing habits with beautiful rituals.
Which is why you should be careful about pinning your own parenthood on the few spectacular events that your children will still be talking about decades later. More important than the few highlights are the daily routines that we perform with our children so often that they eventually become a habit, as natural as the Amen in church.
Another article on the topic of morning rituals:
An occasional game night is not a habit. Singing every evening before going to sleep is.
The interesting thing about habits is that they are in principle freely selectable. You can ritualise anything. The bad as well as the good. It is also never too late to replace missing habits with nice rituals. It's one of the few things in life that you can simply choose freely.
The most important rule is: it has to happen every day. Because the essence of ritual is repetition. And repetition is tough. It takes ages to get used to it, but suddenly you no longer want to be without it.
Name three things that were good today and one thing you're looking forward to tomorrow.
The second most important rule is: if the ritual is cancelled because the Champions League final has just been played or the world has come to an end, no problem, but don't let too much time pass before you start it again.
In a recent interview, I heard Mark Zuckerberg, the much-maligned founder and boss of Facebook, speak on this topic. You can think what you like about him, and the 38-year-old is certainly not the first person to give advice in a parenting magazine. And yet what he said stuck in my mind more than anything I've ever heard about parenting.
In a pleasantly unagitated tone, Zuckerberg said that every evening he sits down by his daughters' bed, they are five and six years old, and asks them: Who did you help today? Good, right?
A friend of mine asks his children every evening: name three things that were good today and one thing you're looking forward to tomorrow.
Also nice. I think Zuckerberg is even better.
We read and sang to our children in bed at night. The same songs and sometimes the same books that our parents had read to us. Rituals last for generations, and they smile mildly at fashions.
What habits from your childhood have you carried on?
